The broadcast for last February's Super Bowl XLIII, in which the Pittsburgh Steelers edged the Arizona Cardinals, featured the usual roster of ads vying for your attention and Twitter posts if not your money.
Among the more notable spots were
this one for Cash4Gold, in which Ed McMahon and MC Hammer urged people to trade in their precious jewelry for cold, hard cash and
this one for
GE's efforts related to the
smart grid, in which an animated scarecrow sings an updated rendition of The Wizard of Oz tune "If I Only Had a Brain" (shown).
The intervening months have not been kind to Cash4Gold, as you can read in the
coverage by our colleagues at the Consumerist.
The smart grid has fared significantly better. About $4.5 billion in
federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is being doled out by the
U.S. Department of Energy to help utilities turn the existing power grid into a smart network. This modernization is designed to enable two-way communication between utilities and consumers.provide safer, more-efficient management of the electric grid, and save you money.
Based on what I heard during an
Edison Electric Institute event last week in New York City, it seems as if the stimulus influx for the smart grid has the country's biggest power companies in good spirits.
"We've been talking about the smart grid for years," said Thomas R. Kuhn, EEI president and event moderator. "It's finally coming to fruition." He added that 58 million smart meters will be installed in U.S. homes within the next 10 years. Pacific Gas & Electric, for instance, says it has deployed smart meters for nearly 4 million of its 15 million customers in California and installs 13,000 every day.
During the event, Andrew Tang, senior director of
PG&E's Smart Energy Web, talked about the "changing relationship between consumers and their electric bill" that smart meters catalyze. For example, instead of paying a flat rate for electricity, customers pay a time-of-use rate, with peak hours occurring from midday to early evening. Customers can also buy an
energy orb (shown), a plug-in device that changes colors to indicate real-time changes in the price of electricity. A simple visual signal like this results in energy reductions ranging from 22 to 37 percent, according to Tang. And more-sophisticated technologies are on the way, including comprehensive in-home displays and programmable communicating thermostats, which are supposed to automatically adjust temperatures based on pricing signals they receive from the utility.
The smart grid has its detractors, including those who contend that consumers have to foot the bill for the technology and not-in-my-backyarders who don't want new smart-grid electricity-distribution lines in their communities.
But unlike Cash4Gold, the smart grid hasn't been hit with
allegations of fraud and racketeering, making its Super Bowl ad the winner so far in this head-to-head.
—Daniel DiClerico |
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Facebook Essential information: A programmable thermostat won't talk to your utility, but it can cut your winter heating bill by 20 percent. Read our
buyer's guide to programmable thermostats (
ratings available to
subscribers) and learn
how to install one. If you're in the market for
new, more-efficient heating and cooling appliances, read our
FAQ on the $300 million State Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program, aka
cash for clunkers for appliances.
